Introducing EstateX: Disrupting the Housing Market

This is a first introduction to EstateX and a sneak peak into the details behind our underlying technology. We hope that you are as excited as we are on the potential for growth and disruption.

Introduction

There is a fundamental problem with the housing market: it has become over-encumbered with unnecessary steps and fees. All around the world, the process of buying a house represents a daunting task for most people, with numerous house visits, valuations, surveys, legal fees and estate agents to deal with. The current housing market is outdated and desperately needs a refreshing restart.

This huge amount of friction has not dampened the fact that house purchases make up one of the most humongous markets in the world. Every year, $162 Trillion of property transactions take place globally, representing a huge amount paid as fees. EstateX taps into this market and works to counter inefficiencies, delays and most importantly the prohibitive, unnecessary and legacy fees ingrained in the current system. We believe that we have the solution to disrupt the entire industry as it currently exists, and we are excited to announce our offering to the world.

Problems

Each country has its own specific process to buy and sell houses, but they all still do share common negative traits. There are several key problems with buying, selling or renting properties globally: it is slow, risky, expensive, confusing and has too many middle-men.

Slow

The entire process can take months and is delayed by unnecessary middlemen. If you are buying a house you may hear the advice to call your lawyer/agent often to make sure that they are pushing your paperwork through fast. This will now be entirely unnecessary with EstateX’s smart contract technology. Identity verification, loan suitability, and title deed transfers can all be done automatically. Speeding up the entire process will make the housing market much more liquid.

Risky

There are many risks that currently exist when buying a house. i) It is possible to lose your deposit. ii) The house may have more problems than initially thought. iii) More work needs to be done on the house than thought. iv) The house loses value after purchasing.

Expensive

This is clear for most people. Besides expensive houses, there are i) excessive legal fees, ii) expensive surveys and valuations and iii) expensive online listing services (this is possible since sellers do not really have better options).

Fraud

i) People currently can advertise the sale of properties that they do not own. This is especially stressful for buyers looking to make cross-border purchases of houses in another country. EstateX’s ledger of Title Deeds can easily prove ownership of a property to the seller so that this cannot happen.

Middlemen

There will be a reduced need for middle-men at every stage, including lawyers, surveyors and estate agents.

Confusing, too much friction and headaches

i) What is a good price? ii) Will more work need to be done on the house? These points of confusion can be mitigated by integrating real-world surveying and valuations with AI and smart contract technology.

Besides all of this there is overall simply too many steps and hoops to go through: visiting houses, getting surveys done, getting a mortgage in principle, getting legal papers sorted, transferring the Title Deed of ownership. The average home buyer can easily get overwhelmed as a result.

Our Solution

We have a unique, well thought out solution, that will allow for much of the entire process to take place on or through the blockchain. It is a modular and extensible system that is able to incorporate any new developments in the crypto space that will happen in the future. For example, at the moment EstateX can use Civic for identity verification, but if a new identity verification service or token becomes available, that can be made an option for the participants as well.

A few other key points and details are highlighted below.

Title Deeds

Title Deeds are what prove ownership of a property. The first shift that EstateX creates is that all Title Deeds are stored on the blockchain. This is cheaper, less risky and more flexible than physically holding a paper deed or title companies maintaining ownership details. Property transactions will be possible directly on the blockchain precisely because of this ledger of Title Deeds being stored on the Blockchain.

Deposits

The blockchain also means that deposits can be held cheaply in escrow, and smart contracts mean that there is much less of a risk for fraud.

Mortgage Contracts

Mortgage contracts will be enforced and executed using smart contracts. One of the effects of this is that terms of mortgages will become much more transparent and more easily comparable now. We believe that even the terms of mortgages themselves will improve due to EstateX, as competition between banks will increase. Any bank from anywhere in the world will also now theoretically be able to lend to anyone.

Modular

EstateX having a modular design means that third parties can participate and extend our system. We anticipate a great host of new companies propping up to benefit hugely from working together.

EstateX Tokens

We are releasing EstateX Tokens (abbreviated symbol STX) to raise funds for further development of this platform. The benefit of holding tokens is that token holders will share in the commission from property sales, paid back in ETH. We believe that this dividend structure is the truest form of providing value back to our investors.

We hope you have enjoyed this quick overview of EstateX and our vision of the future of the housing market. Please do join our mailing list to be the first to hear of all updates.